A wall of flame snakes up an Idaho ridge. Lightnening sparked it?and dozens of other blazes that roared across the bone-dry Great Basin range land set off by an electrical storm.   ..   More than a billion dollars is spent annually suppressing wildfires that burn millions of acres of western land. <br /> <br /> Though fire plays an integral role in many forest and rangeland ecosystems, decades of efforts directed at extinguishing every fire that burned on public lands have disrupted the natural fire regimes that once existed. ..   Moreover, as more communities develop and grow in areas that are adjacent to fire-prone lands in what is known as the wildland/urban interface, wildland fires pose increasing threats to people and their property.
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